Geography: West Midlands, Warwickshire. Part of North Warwickshire council area and part of the Nuneaton and Bedworth council area.

Main population centres: Bedworth, Coleshill, Atherstone.

Profile: A strangely shaped seat to the north-east of Birmingham where it snakes westwards from Bedworth around the seat of Nuneaton, takes in Coleshill and then curves back east south of Tamworth to include Atherstone north of Nuneaton. The seat is largely the rural hinterland between Birmingham, Tamworth, Nuneaton and Coventry, and might be expected to be the sort of semi-rural commuterland where the Conservatives dominate. In fact it covers a large part of the old North Warwickshire coalfield, and as such there is a solid Labour vote here.

Politics: A Conservative vs Labour marginal seat. It was won by the Conservatives on its creation in 1983, was won by Labour in 1992 (unseating the then Conservative MP Francis Maude, who subsequently resurfaced in Horsham) and returned to the Conservative fold in 2010.

Current MP

CRAIG TRACEY (Conservative) Former insurance broker. First elected as MP for Warwickshire North in 2015.

Past Results

2010

Con:

18993 (40%)

Lab:

18939 (40%)

LDem:

5481 (12%)

BNP:

2106 (4%)

Oth:

1746 (4%)

MAJ:

54 (0%)

2005*

Con:

15008 (32%)

Lab:

22561 (48%)

LDem:

6212 (13%)

BNP:

1910 (4%)

Oth:

1248 (3%)

MAJ:

7553 (16%)

2001

Con:

14384 (32%)

Lab:

24023 (54%)

LDem:

5052 (11%)

UKIP:

950 (2%)

MAJ:

9639 (22%)

1997

Con:

16902 (31%)

Lab:

31669 (58%)

LDem:

4040 (7%)

Oth:

711 (1%)

MAJ:

14767 (27%)

*There were boundary changes after 2005

Demographics

2015 Candidates

CRAIG TRACEY (Conservative) Insurance broker.

MIKE O`BRIEN (Labour) Born 1954, Worcester. Educated at Blessed Edward Oldcome RC School and North Staffordshire Polytechnic. Solicitor. Contested Ruislip Northwood 1983, North Warwickshire 1987. MP for Warwickshire North 1992-2010. Under secretary of state at the Home Office 1997-2001, Minister of State at Foreign Office 2002-2004, Minister of State at the DTI 2004-2005, Solicitor General 2005-2007, Minister of state for Work and Pensions 2007-2008, Minister of State for Energy 2008-2009, Minister of State for the NHS 2009-2010.

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